An international conference of the European Science Foundation Program DRUGS organized by Cermes3 (Centre de Recherches Médecine, Sciences, Santé et Société) with the support of Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

To be held in Paris on December 9th-10th-11th 2010Reid Hall 4, rue de Chevreuse 75006 PARIS - Tel 01 43 20 33 07

Globalization has become a major issue in studies of contemporary science and medicine. The range of problems investigated is vast including the surveillance of new epidemics, the development of health markets crossing national and continental boundaries, the internationalization of medical research, the rising economic power of countries like Brazil, China or India and their mounting role in the production of therapeutic agents, the conflicts about biological resources and drug intellectual property, or the renewed interests in traditional systems of medicine and local knowledge. Drugs, their invention, making and uses, have a central role in the new globalization of diseases and remedies. Global standardization has therefore emerged as a marker and occasional topic of analysis, for instance with investigation about the delocalization of clinical trials, the relationship between national regulation agencies, or the standardization activities of the World Health Organization.

However most studies tend to forget that globalization in general, international drug management and standardization in particular are not new processes and practices. The present globalization is just the last phase in a long history. Global drug making and standardization may for instance be traced back to the late 19th century when the rapid industrialization of pharmaceuticals met what the so-called second globalization with its cortege of world fairs, international conferences, new trade routes, capital export and colonization.

The aim of this workshop is to advance the discussion of both these historical routes and recent transformation in the global life of drugs and standards. The aim is however not to simply enlarge the frame of analysis, include international activities in the landscape, and reconsider the national boundaries of standardization. It is rather to address the complex interplay between standardization and the resistance to it, between local and global levels of production, regulation, and use. The circulation of knowledge and practices associated with the definition of good, efficient, valuable, usable, and profitable therapeutic agents did not merely made "things" available but changed them. The global government of drugs must not be equated with the creation of international boards or the appropriation of colonial raw materials but must be looked at various levels. Within the perspective of this workshop, special attention will be paid to the relations the essential practices of displacement and alignment have maintained, focusing on the tools involved in the making of global drugs, i.e. instruments, technical protocols as well as institutional arrangements.

The workshop will accordingly discuss issues like (the list is indicative and not exhaustive) : a) the activities and trajectory of international standardization and/or regulatory bodies like the Ligue of Nations, the World Health Oroganization or the World Intellectual Property Organization ; b) the history and contemporary transformation of pharmacopoeia ; c) the various ways in which the notion of basic health needs has been addressed and turned into operations, for instance with research programs or lists of "essential drugs" ; d) the making or unmaking of drugs targeting diseases like malaria or tuberculosis, which were once diseases of the North to become (neglected) diseases of developed countries.

Given the need for more systematic comparison of past and present globalization, one specific feature of this meeting will be to include historians as well as specialists in the various social sciences interested in the contemporary world of global drugs.

- 9h30-10hAxel Hüntelmann, The Globalization of evaluation. Biological standardization within the German Institute for experimental therapy and the Standardization committee of the Hygiene Organization of the Ligue of Nations

- 10h-10h30Christoph Gradmann, Standardising Resistance. WHO and Antibiotic Sensitivity Testing in the 1960s